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Now, here's an interesting idea, if not necessarily an entirely original one: what if Microsoft were to hand over Bing to Facebook in exchange for a larger stake in the social network?

The idea cropped up in a new e-book for the Amazon Kindle called "The Facebook IPO Pitch," which was written by an anonymous author who asserts that he/she runs an Internet advertising and marketing firm. The book is published by something called Barrington Brown Press, about which I can find nothing. I just spent $4.99 on book, which says this:

Prediction: Microsoft stops funding billions in losses for Bing and swaps Bing to Facebook for more Facebook stock. Facebook can then take a Google-class algorithm based search engine and configure it very tightly with its own search engine to produce a search product that will cross the 50% threshold for search market share.

My pal Tiernan Ray at Barron's points out that CNBC reporter Gary Kaminsky early today briefly mentioned the concept that Microsoft could swap Bing for more Facebook shares, though without attributing the idea, which would appear to be from the anonymous Kindle e-book. Tiernan adds that he talked to Nomura's Rick Sherlund, the dean of Microsoft analysts, and that he thinks the idea of getting rid of Bing is a good one. Sherlund tells Tiernan that the company has been losing $2.5 billion a year on its search engine; handing it over to Facebook would be addition by subtraction. And for Facebook, such a deal would instantly ratchet up its ongoing rivalry with Google.